Pervert flew to America to meet girl he groomed over Xbox

A pervert from Wigan who travelled to America hoping for sex with an under-age girl he had groomed over the internet has been given a 13-and-a-half year sentence.

A judge who described him as “dangerous paedophile” sentenced him to eight-and-a-half years behind bars with an extended licence of five years.

Gary Spain had also secretly taken indecent images of unsuspecting young girls and amassed a massive collection of child porn videos and photographs.

Jailing the bespectacled pervert, Judge Robert Warnock said his victims had been left feeling “betrayed, angry and sad.”

Arthur Gibson, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court that officers raided Spain’s home on April 23 last year and seized various electronic devices including his computers, mobile phones and memory cards.

When these were forensically examined more than 26,000 indecent images of children, including 3,363 in the most serious category were found.

It was discovered that the images included some of a 13-year-old girl in America and they also included photos and videos of two other girls in this country which he had taken.

Mr Gibson said that investigations showed that Spain, 49, had begun having on-line chats with the girl in America in 2008 when she was 13 and sexual activity took place via webcams.

When the girl was traced and interviewed last year she said she first encountered Spain while playing a live game on her Xbox. He asked for sexual photographs of her and if she refused to go along with his requests he threatened to tell her mum about the ones she had already sent.

They exchanged photographs and he flew to the USA and hired a car to travel to meet her and threatened that if she did not agree to meet him he would call at her home and speak to her mother.

Spain, of Springfield Road, Wigan, had pleaded guilty to 10 offences involving taking and possessing indecent images of children, possessing extreme pornographic images; meeting the girl in America; sexually assaulting another child when she was aged between five and 10 and voyeurism.

Steven Swift, defending, said Spain has had trouble coming to terms with why he committed the offences.